Pakistan is expierencing the worst flooding it has seen for years. Buildings collapse and lives end as the flood waters move with devestating consistency. The Telegraph reports the death count to have reached 1200 “as rescuers struggled to help the two million people who have been forced to flee from their homes in the country’s north-west”.
This is exactly the kind of information we’re starting to expect in the news, and so we dont tend to do much about it. I remember seeing disasters covered on the news for the first time to the response of an almighty stomach lurch often followed by tears. As the years pass we as a global community are becoming desensitised to all that is happening around us and in turn we are losing our respect for helping those that are in need.
I could be way off the mark here.. if I were approached by someone in the street to hand money over to one charity or another I’d quite happily list of the reem of subscriptions I have and have maintained for a few years. I would promptly ask them to leave or walk away myself.
If, however, you have a little time and money to spare it’s really worth paying attention to this crisis NOW. Even if you just do a little bit of further reading about the Pakistan floods so that you can inform a circle of people around you, that’s helping the cause.
The main roads are now open – it was not possible to get out of Peshawar until yesterday– but the roads to the villages are still blocked and some 30,000 people are trapped.
If you are happy to take the plunge you can donate to Pakistan floods here, and earn yourself a sense of pride. Helping those in need is a genuinely heroic act in the modern era, and now is as important a time as any for heroes.